In early 2021, Ethereum transaction fees shot up to new highs due to the network’s insufficient scalability. As a result, the DeFi sector, which has traditionally been built around Ethereum, became largely unusable for average users who were suddenly forced to pay around $30–50 in gas fees for a single transaction.
As of late March 2021, the problem still persists. Ethereum developers are looking for ways to scale up their chain ahead of Phase 1.5, which is scheduled to launch in late 2021, but nothing is set in stone yet.
Meanwhile, Layer-2 (L2) solutions for Ethereum are actively picking up the pace. Moving transactions off the main Ethereum chain and handling them via sidechains or rollups, among other methods, L2’s are unburdening the main chain while offering their users near instant, extremely cheap transactions.
Indeed, L2 solutions for Ethereum are particularly important these days, as lots of people who have been locked out of DeFi due to the extreme fees are looking for alternative ways to use it. Moreover, these solutions can benefit the Ethereum network in the longer-term, ultimately making its entire ecosystem even more decentralized, robust, and less dependent on the core Ethereum developers.
Ankr will add API support for leading L2 projects
As you may already know, one of Ankr’s flagship products is our API services, which helps developers build on the Ethereum and Ethereum 2 mainnets. as well as emerging chains such as BINANCE Smart Chain and Polkadot — independent chains which are rapidly becoming strong contenders to Ethereum in the DeFi race, raising the bar for all participants in the process.
Now, we are excited to announce that Ankr is expanding its API services to Layer-2 solutions. With this service, we will empower developers with API access to the most popular L2 projects and enable them to build and scale DeFi products (as seen with Uniswap V3) — all without leaving the Ethereum network, which is still the most popular and liquid choice for Dapp developers and users.
Polygon
Formerly known as Matic Network, Polygon offers a rapidly growing framework that ultimately aims to transform Ethereum into a full-fledged multi-chain system, or, as they put it themselves, the “Internet of blockchains”.
Through Polygon, developers can create practically any kind of infra, be it optimistic rollup chains, ZK rollup chains, stand alone chains or other L2 solutions. Polygon has quickly become one of the main scaling choices for Ethereum native developers who need their users to perform dozens of transactions in a quick, almost gas-less manner.
xDai
Founded back in 2018, xDai is an Ethereum-based sidechain designed for quick and cheap transactions, which might take just around 5 seconds to go through and cost as little as $0.01.
To achieve this goal, xDai employs a version of delegated Proof of Stake (DPOS) consensus called POSDAO and a native multi-chain token called STAKE.
As per usual, Ankr will assume all the technical measures, making L2 solution APIs no-coding, even more, user-friendly solutions — which ultimately nears the Web3 adoption we’ve been so excited about.
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